After separating from the elderly man and the young girl, Lucas began to check some other stores. His experience in the clothing store didn''t dampen his desire to explore the other stores. This trip was vital to the sess of his store, after all.


    In the next few hours, Lucas checked out some other clothing stores, jewellery stores, and a cksmith shop. Unlike his experience in the first store, Lucas didn''t encounter any ''special treatment '' again.


    Although some of the customers and staff were surprised that there was a human, they eventually moved on from the shock; after all, humans were almost no different from hyumans based on their external appearance alone.


    In fact, the only notable external difference was the fact that hyumans were born naturally with coloured hair and eyes, unlike humans that were limited to brown, blonde, red and ck for hair, and blue, amber, brown, ck and, very rarely, grey, for eyes.


    After checking out a few stores, Lucas finally reached hisst stop for the day. It was a Vestige store.


    ording to what he learnt during his seclusion period indoors, vestiges were special products that had ster energy within them; this world''s equivalent of magic weapons. The advantage of having mystical energy within an object was that they would be much stronger, durable, and powerful than their regr counterparts.


    Most vestiges were weapons or armours as the main reason vestiges were made was tobat alien species who could utilise ster energy.


    The production of vestiges was even rumoured to havee about before the first generation of hyumans, after all, humans were still exploring their star region but they faced threats from other alien species. Regr firearms and weapons couldn''tpete with the enemy, so they had to make improvements and that was how vestiges came to be.


    Ster matrices, which was the core of vestiges, were created during this period as well.


    cksmiths dealt with regr items but the smiths that crafted or created vestiges were usually called Vestige-smiths. The title wasn''t just for those who made weapons, but those who made space-ships, jewellery and any object that contained ster energy.


    Considering that the system intended for Lucas to be the Crafts-God, there was no doubt that its intention was for him to be a vestige-smith. As such, Lucas had to be familiar with the standards of this world.


    Just as Lucas stepped into the store and nced around, he noticed a familiar figure browsing the items in the store. It was the female cop he met when he first came into this world; thedy that had intervened when Lucas first shed with the kidnappers.


    Despite seeing her however, Lucas made no attempt to meet her nor greet her. Both parties were strangers, and based on her behaviour back then, Lucas knew that trying to be friendly with her might backfire at him. For that reason, it was best that he stayed in hisne.


    Lucas nced around and noticed that apart from cold weapons like swords, axes, and the likes, there were surprisingly hot weapons too. Lucas saw an assault rifle on disy, but unlike the ones from Earth, this has some strange carvings and groove marks on the barrel and other parts of the body. Even the cartridge[1] that was kept beside it wasn''t spared.


    There were a few other rifles in this section with differing designs.


    Both the weapons and the cartridges, especially thetter, were made of special metals and had either runes or ster matrices on them. One of the guns by the side was marked with ster matrices while its corresponding cartridges were carved with runes.


    There weren''t just guns though, as other popr hot weapons like grenadeunchers, RPGs and so on were on disy.


    Lucas was surprised to see hot weapons here but not so much. This was a technological world so it was understandable. In fact, despite seeing the designs and appearance, Lucas had a feeling that the principle of operation for these weapons were probably different from those on Earth. In other words, while it looked like an RPG, it might be aser-type weapon.


    "Hey system, what''s going on?" Lucas asked mentally.


    The system understood his question and replied, "As host levels up the system, new blueprints would be avable. For more information, please open the store for operation."


    Lucas nodded as it made sense. If he were just to get ess to everything right now, he would have almost no need for the system. At the same time, some of them might be tooplex for him at the moment, and being a training system, it wouldn''t make sense for the system to grant him ess to these blueprints right now.


    Despite being a grandmaster cksmith in hisst life, Lucas wasn''t so self-invested or prideful to think that he could make anything and everything in this world right away. Just this past week of working on the blueprints from the system already widened his perspective and taught him a lot.


    After looking around a bit, Lucas prepared to leave. He had tried purchasing one of the vestiges but found out that he needed to have either a frencer license, a permit or a rmendation from a registered frencer. This wasn''t like a certain country in his past life on Earth where one could walk into a store and easily get a rifle as long as they were above 18 years of age.


    There was a strict system here that prevented vestiges from easily getting into the hands of an average individual.


    The difficulty of purchase aside, Lucas had already checked out the cold weapon-type vestiges and made some mentalparisons with his own creations as well as the vestige he took from the corpse of the kidnappers. Thisparison made him more confident in his skills, with the only problem being hisck of knowledge on ster matrices and alien runes.


    Although he could find some sort of receable information on the KSSI (the sr system intr), it couldn''tpare to that of reputed vestige-smiths orpanies. One could learn the meaning of certain runes and ster matrices online, but the tutorial on inscribing them was different.


    Because runes and ster matrices were closely rted to creating vestiges, they were ssified information of sorts and confidential to individual vestige-smiths andpanies. Even getting ess to the basic and standard tutorials required one to be influential of sorts, or have passed certain exams by the city-state government.


    However, Lucas wasn''t worried. He had done a few experiments and found out that the magic runes from his first life worked out just fine here too, after a few changes. Being the only one familiar with such runes would make his products unique, and this was intended to be one of his selling points; a branding strategy, if you will.


    Just as he turned around to leave, Lucas overheard a conversation from a couple. They seemed to bementing about the absence of a certain item they wanted. As he caught sight of this, a thought crossed Lucas'' mind and slowly solidified into a n.


    A man and a woman left the vestige store and began to walk away into the distance, however, after going a few metres, they stopped and turned around. Behind them was a young man who looked to be between 21-23 years of age. Despite being so young, his eyes gave off a light of wisdom and calmness, something that an average young adult shouldn''t have so soon.


    "Who might you be, and why are you following us?" The man asked.


    Lucas, who had been following behind the couple, calmly replied with a s mile.


    "I mean you no harm. In fact, I can''t harm you. As you can see, I am a human." Lucas answered.


    "As for why I was following you, I overheard your conversation in the store. Something about looking for a spear at the third grade."


    The couple visibly rxed after Lucas'' reply, but they still kept their guards up, but not by much. It looked like the line ''I am human'' worked a lot to Lucas'' advantage.


    "And what about it?" The man asked with a in look.


    "I happen to know a friend who''s a vestige-smith. I went over to his ce just the other day and saw a really nice spear. It gave off an intimidating vibe, and looked quite powerful, too. I could hook you up if you are interested."


    Saying this, Lucas opened hismunicator and projected an image right away, not giving the duo any time to react.


    The couple nced at the image and were quite surprised by it. The spear in the image was well made from an aesthetic viewpoint. Even without seeing the real deal in front of them, it looked like a marvelous work by a cksmith. However, what they wanted wasn''t regr metal work but a vestige.


    One couldn''t judge the value of a vestige by mere images, so there was no telling whether the spear was as powerful as it looked. Otherwise, it might as well just be a ceremonial weapon[2].


    The man frowned and prepared to reject, but thedy replied just then.N?v(el)B\\jnn


    "Can we have a look too?"


    "Well, not now. You see, he just moved into town and ns to open his store tomorrow. At the moment, none of his works are for sale until then." Lucas sighed.


    The woman stared at him for a while, before asking for the address of the store to which Lucas gave her. Right after that, the duo left.


    As for why Lucas lied and imed the store was ran by a friend, it was simple. The duo were much stronger than him and having seen the value of a vestige in the previous store as well as knowing the importance of a vestige-smith, Lucas didn''t n on telling them lest they kidnapped him and forced him to hand over his weapons as well as his secrets.


    Who knows, they might even lock him up in a secluded location and force him to make vestiges.


    This wasn''t impossible as human trafficking was a thing even with the government''s attempts at stopping it. As for whether those attempts are genuine or not, it wasn''t Lucas'' ce to say.


    Lucas was currently weak, so he didn''t intend on drawing attention on himself at the moment. Unless he was in the store, he was as a weak as a chicken in the face of any frencer out there. Nheless, even with the risk, Lucas still decided to give it a shot and invite them over for hisunch the next day.